Total Pageviews

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

A Norwegian Horror Story

I still
remember that morning last July when I was on holiday and woke to the news of a
terrible gun incident in Norway.
It was one of those awful days when the news got gradually worse and worse and
the death toll rose to a staggering 77.

It is hard
to imaging anything worse than what the victims and families went through. But
having to hear his disgusting justification must come close. Using his trial as
a platform for his extremist views he told the court –

"The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I
acted in self-defence on behalf of my people, my city, my country; I therefore
demand to be found innocent of the present charges."

Of course we all know that those young victims were no
danger to him or anybody else and that this was the act of a chilling
supremacist.

I have to say I am surprised that he has been given such a
public opportunity to share these views. He admits that he killed all of the
victims. He admits that he did it intentionally. He has been found not to be
insane. In this country he would have no legal defence to murder on the basis
of his rants. Seeking to justify actions by reference to a clearly warped
standard comes nowhere near adding to up to a defence. That is certainly the
case here and I cannot imagine Norway
is any different.

Now I am a lifelong defender of the right of free speech.
But this isn’t an issue of free speech. That is not what the court is for. The
purpose of a court hearing is to decide whether or not he is guilty of one of
the worst crimes of murder that we have seen and to sentence him accordingly.

We all know what the outcome will be. He will be convicted
and will receive a life sentence. There is no other issue to be decided by a
court.

So it would have been better all round if he had not had the
platform to have the whole world’s press reporting his views. And his victim’s
families would have had the opportunity to begin to rebuild.